AS LATRELL Sprewell begins to prove on a regular basis what many already knew – that he’s a fearless, often reckless, gimme-the-baller with extraordinary free-wheeling skills – TV and newspaper stories designed to tap into the inner man have come with a rush.

And, because Sprewell is leading the Knicks on an unexpected, even unfathomable run, the media and fans have beeneager to cast him in a sympathetic light, a bad guy gone good. Character is measured in wins, losses and wishful thinking.

And nearly all of these stories about Sprewell include a variation of the same quote as it relates to his anti-social, even criminal past:

“A lot of people really don’t know what kind of person I am.” Or, “People really don’t know me.” In fact, those standardized quotes from Sprewell appeared in newspapers as recently as Friday. They also were read and heard in the days immediately following his acquisition by the Knicks.

Alright then, if that’s the case, if, in Sprewell’s oft-repeated words, people don’t really know his good side, what has he done in a public sense to promote his perception as both a good basketball player and a good guy?

Well, in his most visible endeavor, Sprewell now appears in a commercial for And 1 basketball gear, his first TV endorsement as a Knick.

Designed to portray Sprewell’s true sense of self, he flaunts his sordid past and defiantly tells his audience that it really doesn’t matter if he has a propensity for misdeeds because, after all, he’s a great basketball player, “a three-time NBA All-Star.” This, he says, establishes him as “the American dream.”

So, frustrated by the perception that he’s not a nice person, he chooses to do a commercial that cements that very notion, a commercial that portrays him as an unapologetic creep who couldn’t care less about what you think of him.

But why should he care? Sprewell has become to many New Yorkers what Lawrence Phillips was to Nebraska football yahoos. In Sprewell’s case, his criminal bent is advanced as a commercial come-on. The ends justify the means. A good athlete can get away with anything. If not the American dream, it’s the American way.

And we, the basketball fans of New York, celebrated as erudite and urbane, are no different from our corn-fed country brethren in Nebraska.

Sprewell’s acquisition by the Knicks brought widespread fan and media condemnation. He was, after all, a bad guy. All of that has changed. Not because he’s a good guy, but because the Knicks are winning and he’s certainly helping.

He’s a helluva player. That makes him a good guy. *

AND 1, the basketball gear company that chose Sprewell as a paid TV spokesperson – and chose him because of his rotten reputation, not in spite of it – specializes in manufacturing T-shirts designed to degrade and provoke opponents and anyone else in view. One reads, “You like that move? So does your girl.”

In this week’s Sports Illustrated, And 1 co-founder Seth Berger boasts of his company’s trash-talking salesmanship in marketing young males: “Trash talk is a crucial element of basketball, part of what makes it great and gives it flavor.”

Attaboy, Seth. Small wonder you’d choose Sprewell as your salesman. The process of desensitizing American kids continues. Something as wonderful as team sports, something that once held the promise of turning a bad kid into a good kid, now stands a better chance of turning a good kid into a bad one. *

AS exhilarating as the Knicks’ Game 1 win was in Indiana, the game’s final minutes degenerated into what’s killing the NBA game – one-on-one, clear-out ball, Mark Jackson on one end, Patrick Ewing on the other. Minimalism. We saw it throughout the regular season and now throughout the playoffs. It’s basketball, all right, but minus eight of 10 players.

On Sunday, a Ch. 11 cameraman found a woman seated in Shea. She wore a huge, inflated hand. As Ch. 11 stayed with the shot, the woman folded down four of the fingers, leaving the middle one exposed. She likely brought the hand to the game figuring that TV rewards the attention-starved and she was right.

This observer continues to suspect that the Mets’ sacking of Tim McCarver has left a lasting message among the club’s current announcers. Mike Piazza twice didn’t run the bases hard in the ninth inning Friday, perhaps costing the Mets a run in a game they lost, 2-1.

But he was issued an overt lookaway pass by Howie Rose, Tom Seaver and, in the post-game, by resident Met apologist Ed Coleman.

It’s irrelevant where Piazza would have ended up had everything played to form, but there are no guarantees, thus there’s no excuse for not running hard. The worst that could have happened is that Piazza would have had to stop quickly as opposed to running slowly. *

SATURDAY during Yanks-Jays on Ch. 5, McCarver and Bobby Murcer exchanged thoughts on the premium now placed on very tall pitchers.

“Let’s talk about the physics of it,” said McCarver.

“You talk about the physics of it,” said Murcer, “I got a D in math.” *

ROUND and ’round it goes. Because mindless, involuntary reflexes have always dominated hiring practices, CBS three years ago hired former UCLA coach Terry Donahue as its lead college football analyst. It made no difference that Donahue wasn’t very good, nor that he showed little inclination to improve, he was the biggest between-jobs name available among coaches.

Now Donahue is out, off to the Niners’ front office. He’ll be replaced by former Penn State QB and ABCer Todd Blackledge, who, because he’s inclined to tell his audience a thing or two, should’ve been the kind of analyst CBS sought to hire in the first place.